The Lure of Video

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about doing videos. I realize that something like four days worth of video is uploaded to a place like YouTube every minute (not an exaggeration) and that wading into that tumultuous Kraken-infested ocean of content in hopes of making a meaningful splash is agonizingly laughable — and I’d relent to that argument if the whole “making a splash” part were my motivation — but the more I watch videos and get joy out of what others are doing, the less it looks like a murder-ocean and the more it looks like the biggest, best wading pool in the whole world.

This tends to be how I operate, and how I am inspired to create content. A lot of people really like to be at the cutting edge of things, trying out new mediums, new ideas, new concepts for delivering content, and I am glad they are there to do those things in the same way that I’m glad there are already people who like to do things like farming, carpentry and operating toll booths. I like to come in later and stand on the shoulders of giants, because it is the creation of content in a stable medium that keeps me engaged and excited.

It happened for me this way with podcasts, and to some degree even with the willingness to be part of building Gamers With Jobs to begin with. The mediums were already long and well established when I showed up late to the party, and I arrived more eager to join in the fun than to be some kind of trailblazer. I worry that seems sycophantic, but I don’t worry so much that I’ll have trouble getting to sleep tonight.

Anyway, that’s the place I am rapidly approaching with video. I watch all kinds of content now, and I think more and more to myself, “that looks like a lot of fun to do. Why am I not doing that?” Which, is how I’ve found myself thinking a lot less lately in terms of whether I should try to get into the video game (see what I did there?) and more in terms of “I wonder what kind of video I should make.”

Obviously as a site we’ve been dipping our toe into the video waters here and there this year, and from my point of view it’s been wildly successful. That may seem like an odd statement if you actually look at how many views (fewer than 8,000 total for all videos) we’ve received or how much advertising revenue we generated through them (rounded up, it comes to zero dollars). I point out those numbers because those are not at all uncommon metrics to measure the success of content-creation endeavors. In fact, it would probably be very easy for us to look at the results of our efforts and think, “Eh, it’s probably not our thing.”

I wouldn’t say no to 800,000 views or a big wad of YouTube revenue sharing dollars, mind you. Those things would be nice, but when I think about what defines success for us in video, what I think about is whether it was fun to make and whether I’m proud of the results. On those fronts, the answer to date is an unqualified “yes.”

A lot of people tell me that they like listening to our podcast because it feels like hanging out with a group of friends who really like each other and are talking about games. This is my favorite comment, because essentially it is a completely accurate description of why the show exists and why, after 350 episodes, weekly recordings remain something I look forward to. The show is exactly what it seems to be. It’s my chance to hang out with my favorite people in the world, make some jokes with them and talk about playing video games. There’s really not much I’d rather be doing.

What you’re listening to each week is just a small framework of structure around what each of us would likely be doing even if there wasn’t a microphone jammed in our faces. Every year, for example, when I go out to Rabbitcon, Rob Zacny and I inevitably steal away from the games and the music with a bottle of gin and sit and talk about e-sports or games publishing for a couple of hours. They are complex, layered and ambitious discussions, and I always walk away thinking we could have recorded that and essentially had 3 podcasts worth of discussion — though the last third after the gin really kicks in might be touch-and-go. It is in those moments that I’m reminded why I do the shows I do, and it’s because the act of doing them, the act of getting to engage with brilliant people, is what motivates me.

I bring all that up because I don’t know that everyone out there who makes a podcast or content of any kind really is thinking about the medium that way, or has the luxury to do so. I’m not trying to claim moral authority here, somehow casting aspersions on anyone who isn’t themselves casting for the purity of the conversation. Besides, I clearly realize that after more than a decade, GWJ is far from a power player in the games space. What I do know, however, is that if we didn’t do it this way, I don’t think any of us would still be doing it at all.

So, when I look at video, I think about it in those terms. I think about it in an almost selfish way, as though to say, “If I started doing video, how could I do that in a way where I just get to play more games and talk more about games with my best friends?” And, obviously, that’s a pretty easy way to get motivated.

A few months ago Shawn and I did a StarCraft II video. You can find it here. It is one of my favorite pieces of content of any kind that we’ve done so far for the site, or frankly that I’ve worked on anywhere. It’s not that it is exceptionally elegant in production, and we were far from making a strong case for how great we are at StarCraft, but I can watch that video and instantly feel the fun and joy I had when we made it. It is a conduit, an emotional mnemonic device, that can take me instantly to that place in my head that feels like having amazing fun playing a game. I find myself smiling at the screen the entire time I’m watching it.

It makes me want more. It makes me leap from the place of thinking about video in the abstract as a new opportunity for content delivery on a website, to thinking about video as something that I just really want to do regardless of how it relates to the business of GWJ. Which, not coincidentally, is how I can not bother thinking about views and likes and revenue. Those immediately stop being the metrics for success in my head. Luckily, I know myself well enough to know that when I’m thinking about trying something — particularly something which is time-consuming and which requires genuine effort and planning — I will never really be committed to any medium unless I’m driven by the joy of creating in that medium.

So I think about video a lot now. I think about the kind of content I would want to create. I think about how I could get better at making something worth watching. I think about what that content even looks like. Is it me playing games? Is it me and my friends playing together? Is it discussion based? What do I need in order to record, to edit, to render? Those are big, outstanding questions that remain a kind of barrier for me, but I feel myself getting closer and closer to figuring it out and creating something on a regular basis.

Comments

This is a timely post, as I've just been tasked with doing a video for work-related stuff and have had to start thinking about many of the same things. The technical requirements are pretty daunting, but really it's trying to come up with the content that causes my desiccated eyelids to convulse. The problem is that 99.99% of the time, work videos are far, far down the fun scale. Informative + entertaining requires a number of creative neurons that decomposed a long time ago.

Never forget Harrison Schmidt!

"With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want." - Christopher Columbus

One of the things I've wondered about is, with the proliferation of homemade content, what happens as the last of the gatekeepers become irrelevant. In the past content has been culled by places like movie studios and major music labels, but now anyone can make anything and host it anywhere. It's a fire hose, but how do you find the molecule of H2O you really want? I'm not sure that question has been adequately answered yet, but I'm curious to see what sort of organically arises out of it.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

A giant Cthulu alien just threw the top of Big Ben at Abraham Lincoln's airship.

I don't really see it different than anyother content delivery model on the internet. You could ask the same thing about blogs, articles, news sites, music, etc. The internet is, as you say, a fire hose, but it's a fire hose of everything. Yet, we all find things we enjoy, can relate to, connect with. I think the answer is that you find it the same way you find any other content on the web, you search for it, you get recommendations socially, you stumble across it through a link on a site you trust, maybe even you get a new delivery from a source you already trust.

I think the difference is that you can never feel confident you've gotten the "best". Without gatekeepers to cull the masses, you don't have this finite list to prioritize and rank to say with confidence, yup, this is the best comedy show on the internet. But, at the same time, I think the sense of "best" or "really good" on tv is an artificial construct because it assumes the gatekeepers are 1) acting in your interests and 2) are good at only providing the "best".

The thing about smart people is they seem like crazy people to dumb people -- Thing I saw on the Internet

I love consuming video content, but I wouldn't want it to replace the audio podcasts I've grown so accustomed to listening to every week from you guys, the Giant Bomb crew, Rebel FM, and others. The ability to put those on in the car, or at work, and be entertained and involved while still devoting my visual attention (and, at least hypothetically, my focus) to something else is really valuable to me.

Still, I agree that the shift towards video is inevitable as video production and sharing becomes easier and less costly every day. The Starcraft II video was indeed really good. Bravo. Keep it up.

One of the things I've wondered about is, with the proliferation of homemade content, what happens as the last of the gatekeepers become irrelevant. In the past content has been culled by places like movie studios and major music labels, but now anyone can make anything and host it anywhere. It's a fire hose, but how do you find the molecule of H2O you really want? I'm not sure that question has been adequately answered yet, but I'm curious to see what sort of organically arises out of it.

My guess is that finding it will work pretty much the way we find any content today--search, word of mouth, social media/news feeds, celebrity and other influentials' (for the record I hate that word) blogs. What's new I think is that brands themselves are gaining a lot more control over how content is shared and found as they become the creators and publishers. Expect to see a lot more brand tie-ins, for better or for worse.

*edited to remove the newt

Never forget Harrison Schmidt!

"With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want." - Christopher Columbus

I wouldn't want (video content) to replace the audio podcasts I've grown so accustomed to ...Still, I agree that the shift towards video is inevitable as video production and sharing becomes easier and less costly every day.

People still listen to analog radio so I'm not worried about audio podcasts.

I've been doing Let's Plays on youtube for over 3 years now. I've taken breaks from it several times, but I always come back to it. Because it's fun. I don't have many subscribers, I don't make any money from it, but I just enjoy doing it. I know the majority of gamers have no interest in even watching Let's Plays, and making one is ridiculous to them. I just really enjoy it.

I'd like to get into doing video reviews and other sorts of content, which I've dipped my toe into, but they're just so much work. At least, if you want to have a good end result. I've written up whole outlines for videos I'd like to do, but I just haven't taken the time to do the work. I can't seem to motivate myself to do them.

I've been doing Let's Plays on youtube for over 3 years now. I've taken breaks from it several times, but I always come back to it. Because it's fun. I don't have many subscribers, I don't make any money from it, but I just enjoy doing it. I know the majority of gamers have no interest in even watching Let's Plays, and making one is ridiculous to them. I just really enjoy it.

I'd like to get into doing video reviews and other sorts of content, which I've dipped my toe into, but they're just so much work. At least, if you want to have a good end result. I've written up whole outlines for videos I'd like to do, but I just haven't taken the time to do the work. I can't seem to motivate myself to do them.

So yeah, I know where you're coming from.

I dunno, I keep seeing tweets, Facebook posts, and discussions about folks doing Let's Plays. It seems like quite a few members of the community here are doing them as well (such as our good man Parallax Abstraction and his show Retro Flashback).

I, however, have been working on the video review stuff, and you know what? I have learned one important thing: if you're going to discuss something about a game at length, make sure the footage is easy to find. I should have been at least halfway finished, if not totally finished, my Resident Evil 6 review by now. Instead, I haven't even finished the first part because it's so tiresome going through all of the gameplay just to collect five seconds of relevant footage to what I'm discussing at the time.

But once I'm through that, I know the process will be faster and more pleasant. I loved the Mega Man X video, the Tutorials video, and the Iron Man 3 video. They were great fun to put together. I look forward to discussing games like The Walking Dead, Catherine, and Remember Me in the future, too. Will they require a lot of work? Oh yes. I have to write a script, double check it (and even triple check it) to trim any fat, make sure the language is clear, and make sure the argument is sound, and then record and edit the audio (editting audio being the worst process). Then comes pulling in the video clips and mashing it all together.

It's a Hell of a lot of work, but totally worth it at times.

That is, until you do something stupid, like complain for way too long about how dumb it is to trip over dead bodies in Resident Evil 6.

That's when you just gotta make a decision. Do you watch ALL the footage for ALL the campaigns hoping for something relevant, or just recycle footage and say "better job next time"?

I love consuming video content, but I wouldn't want it to replace the audio podcasts I've grown so accustomed to listening to every week from you guys, the Giant Bomb crew, Rebel FM, and others. The ability to put those on in the car, or at work, and be entertained and involved while still devoting my visual attention (and, at least hypothetically, my focus) to something else is really valuable to me.

Yeah, I love the podcast (and podcasts in general) because I can listen to them while multitasking - driving around, doing chores, walking the dog. I rarely watch any video content because it actually requires my full attention. If I'm actually going to sit down at my computer and give something game-related my full attention, chances are it's a game. The question to me, really, is what does video content offer that's more compelling than audio? Why would I watch you guys play SC2 rather than play it myself?

That being said, best not listen to me. I'm the guy who doesn't get the appeal of a "Let's Play" video aside from replacing a crappy tutorial or for exclusives where you don't own the console. I'm clearly on the wrong side of history on that one.

If I'm actually going to sit down at my computer and give something game-related my full attention, chances are it's a game.

I think that might be part of the stumbling block a lot of people have. You see, my computer is hooked up to my television. For me, watching a youtube video is just as comfortable and laid back as watching a DVD. If I had to go and sit at a desk to do all this stuff, I'd certainly do less of it.

As far as what a Let's Play offers that audio, or playing the game yourself doesn't, is a different overall experience. When you're playing a game, you're very much involved and active. Which, frankly, is why we like them so much. But a Let's Play lets you just sit back and watch, like a movie. It's a totally different state of mind. Also, it really, REALLY depends on the commentator. You have to find some one you really like, or it will be a terrible experience. For me, I watch Let's Plays of games I've already played, if I don't feel like playing them again but want to re-experience the story. Or games which I have a slight interest in, but not enough to bother playing (especially with my huge backlog). That includes games with obtuse or annoying interfaces, combat mechanics that I'm not willing to put up with, etc. but which have an intriguing story or setting. Sometimes a Let's Play can be more entertaining than a tv show.

Edit: On a side note, BBcode tags don't seem to be working for me. Why is that? Hrm.

What makes me listen to the GWJ podcast is definitely the discussion between friends note. You don't talk new or do reviews. You talk about the games you played and what you like or dislike. This makes a big difference for me because it is subjective and I can relate to the persons who are discussing the game, whereas most of the reviews I read rarely use the first person and try to be objective by deconstructing the game.

The best part is when one of the GWJ crew didn't play the game and ask questions about it. It builds an actual story about you playing the game and explaining why others should pick it up. This convinced me more than once to buy a game you discussed on the podcast.

The video content on gaming is a very large beast and like Kyosho said it depends very much on the commentator. The type of Let's Play makes also a big difference. Three comes to mind: live single player, live multi player, post-game commentary.

I definitely have a big problem with single player Let's Play, especially when the story is good or the game offer several approach to solve problem. Two example comes to mind.
First one was Deus Ex: HR. I watch the end of the game after the skinless boss in the gallery because I couldn't defeat it. The player was rushing through the levels gun blazing, the opposite of what I would have done. I got what I wanted, the end of the game, but it felt wrong with me because it was not what I would have done.
Second one (and I think I'm going to take some heat for this) is The Last of Us. I watched the first 2 part of Day[9] play-through and couldn't go further because he was looking at every details, every texture and not going with the story. While I like his personality and what he does with the dailies, I remember cursing at him because his play style seemed so off compared to the story and what was happening around him.

The multiplayer Let's Play are something I enjoy a lot more because it is often a group of friends playing the game and it is close to the GWJ podcast experience. I watch Achievement Hunters on a regular basis because, while sometimes the extensive swearing makes me cringe, I find them funny and the friendly competition between them is entertaining. Also the imagination they have to create games within games is great. Look at their GTA 4 series or their Minecraft series. TotalBiscuit is also a great example with his Dungeonland Let's Play and his BloodBowl Tournament

Post-game commentaries like you did on the Starcraft and the Dark Soul Let's Play are great. Once again it's the storytelling part of your play-through I enjoy the most. I find the recollection of your gaming experience and the discussion it sparks more interesting than live commentary of the game. You bring more context and "analysis" of what you did and why, instead of just describing your actions and your raw reaction while we see what you are doing onscreen, like lots of live let's player do.

I watch Let's Play for their entertainment value and multi-player let's play brings me what I seek. Post-game commentaries are more a way for me to discover new games by watching someone play and discuss what his thoughts on the game are.

I've started to really loathe the use of video on the internet, which turns up particularly in gaming circles. I don't understand why anyone would want to "consume" it with preference. Reading well-written text is highly efficient: I can scan for relevant passages, search with a text box, read slowly and carefully or skim. The writer can carefully edit and re-edit their document for maximum impact, organization, or humor.

Most video I'm forced to look at is unedited stream-of-consciousness twittering, that badly reproduces a paragraph worth of content in 5 long minutes.

Even at the best of times, I can read a transcript of a debate on a news program at about 3 times the rate that the debate was conducted.

It's clear why video is adopted, though: it's easy to slap together screen caps, add your favorite dance mix, and talk over it. Writing is inefficient for the sender but very efficient for the receiver - audio and video move to the other end of the scale: efficient for the sender but inefficient for the listener or viewer... and thus, it seems to me, slightly insulting.

The ease of creating bad written content and bad video content is, to my mind, roughly equal. I imagine, actually, that I could slap together a crappy piece of writing far faster than I could a crappy video segment.

The thing about smart people is they seem like crazy people to dumb people -- Thing I saw on the Internet

Most video I'm forced to look at is unedited stream-of-consciousness twittering, that badly reproduces a paragraph worth of content in 5 long minutes...

It's clear why video is adopted, though: it's easy to slap together screen caps, add your favorite dance mix, and talk over it. Writing is inefficient for the sender but very efficient for the receiver - audio and video move to the other end of the scale: efficient for the sender but inefficient for the listener or viewer... and thus, it seems to me, slightly insulting.

Elysium wrote:

The ease of creating bad written content and bad video content is, to my mind, roughly equal. I imagine, actually, that I could slap together a crappy piece of writing far faster than I could a crappy video segment.

First, +1 to Elysium. Second, you're talking about one of the reasons it is actually harder for me to find video content I enjoy subscribing to.

However, just because the majority of video content is crap, it doesn't mean all of it is or has to be. One of the reasons I do videos is to illustrate my point better with the addition of visuals. I'm still new at this, and I don't always think about what I'm doing while I record gameplay (and as a result don't always have the necessary footage I need or have to loop it), but when your medium is strictly text-based, there's a lot more description required.

As an example, I had already written an article on one particular lesson/tutorial taught in Dead Space 2 when the game was new, but I managed to get the same point across in this video with far fewer words (and managed to discuss a lot more as well, simply because I could basically "say an idea" and then illustrate it with the gameplay).

A well-constructed video can be like a well-constructed business presentation. There are, naturally, several problems. I tend to really like longer, in-depth analysis of games, but there are even times where I wonder if the often better written video maker should have gone back and edited some of the content to their video down. However, none of us are professionals, and I know myself that there were times when writing/recording audio I should have stopped, thought, and changed things around.

But that, again, is dependent on the video reviewer. I learned that huge ass videos aren't necessarily my thing (and with Resident Evil 6, it's possible that video reviews aren't my thing at all, and it's better to jump in with a specific message rather than a broad, sweeping review). That's part of the learning process. Yet if someone puts an honest, hard effort into it, well, I think my Mega Man X video is the worst, but others insist it's still my best one. When you consider how many times I had to replay the game in order to get all the necessary footage, and how it helps illustrate what I'm talking about, you can see how video can instead be more advantageous at times.

It really annoys me when I go to an article that interests me, and I discover that the article is a video.

When I'm on the computer, I'm reading, and often reading many things at once. I'm doing design work, maybe listening to music, and looking over websites. But when I hit a video, all of that has to stop, and I have to turn my full attention to this little window for several minutes.

It also annoys me that I can't skim and search a video. If I'm looking up an RPG review, and I want to know a little bit about the combat system, I want to Ctrl+F "Combat" and see what comes up.

A contributing factor to my impatience is that I'm a fast reader. I can get through an article in 45 seconds that takes a speaker 5-7 minutes to talk through.

And finally, most video content just isn't very good. Sharp, well-scripted stuff can be fun, but most of the game reviews on YouTube are just a talking head mumbling through the same text that they would have posted as an article.

I don't really see it different than anyother content delivery model on the internet. You could ask the same thing about blogs, articles, news sites, music, etc. The internet is, as you say, a fire hose, but it's a fire hose of everything. Yet, we all find things we enjoy, can relate to, connect with. I think the answer is that you find it the same way you find any other content on the web, you search for it, you get recommendations socially, you stumble across it through a link on a site you trust, maybe even you get a new delivery from a source you already trust.

I think the difference is that you can never feel confident you've gotten the "best". Without gatekeepers to cull the masses, you don't have this finite list to prioritize and rank to say with confidence, yup, this is the best comedy show on the internet. But, at the same time, I think the sense of "best" or "really good" on tv is an artificial construct because it assumes the gatekeepers are 1) acting in your interests and 2) are good at only providing the "best".

The notion of curation is a giant conversation among new-media/internet-content theorists that ... I've never really had enough time to read. If I were to say something worthwhile, it'd probably come after asking @10rdben on Twitter.

Dysplastic wrote:

Ravenlock wrote:

I love consuming video content, but I wouldn't want it to replace the audio podcasts I've grown so accustomed to listening to every week from you guys, the Giant Bomb crew, Rebel FM, and others. The ability to put those on in the car, or at work, and be entertained and involved while still devoting my visual attention (and, at least hypothetically, my focus) to something else is really valuable to me.

Yeah, I love the podcast (and podcasts in general) because I can listen to them while multitasking - driving around, doing chores, walking the dog. I rarely watch any video content because it actually requires my full attention. If I'm actually going to sit down at my computer and give something game-related my full attention, chances are it's a game. The question to me, really, is what does video content offer that's more compelling than audio? Why would I watch you guys play SC2 rather than play it myself?

That being said, best not listen to me. I'm the guy who doesn't get the appeal of a "Let's Play" video aside from replacing a crappy tutorial or for exclusives where you don't own the console. I'm clearly on the wrong side of history on that one.

I use LPs to catch up on titles I haven't played where the story is regarded as worthwhile. I find the format to be useful for catching up, or even seeing what alternate choices/playthroughs look like, without spending the hours of direct attention myself.

TrisDrake wrote:

What makes me listen to the GWJ podcast is definitely the discussion between friends note. You don't talk new or do reviews. You talk about the games you played and what you like or dislike.

For the record, this is my favorite part about GWJ's front page in general. I honestly don't have the time or patience to sift through all the news and previews posts on most games sites, let alone actually skim through them to see if there's anything worthwhile.

Elysium wrote:

The ease of creating bad written content and bad video content is, to my mind, roughly equal. I imagine, actually, that I could slap together a crappy piece of writing far faster than I could a crappy video segment.

I think the interesting trick is that, for all the expensive stuff that goes into a "high quality" video, I think what makes the content of a video or a written post actually valuable is the same stuff: structure, pacing, editing, and a careful respect for the audience's time and attention.

It really annoys me when I go to an article that interests me, and I discover that the article is a video.

When I'm on the computer, I'm reading, and often reading many things at once. I'm doing design work, maybe listening to music, and looking over websites. But when I hit a video, all of that has to stop, and I have to turn my full attention to this little window for several minutes.

It also annoys me that I can't skim and search a video. If I'm looking up an RPG review, and I want to know a little bit about the combat system, I want to Ctrl+F "Combat" and see what comes up.

A contributing factor to my impatience is that I'm a fast reader. I can get through an article in 45 seconds that takes a speaker 5-7 minutes to talk through.

And finally, most video content just isn't very good. Sharp, well-scripted stuff can be fun, but most of the game reviews on YouTube are just a talking head mumbling through the same text that they would have posted as an article.

Completely agree. I read fast, I multitask, and even if the story is interesting I will skip it if it's video-only.